When You Wake Me
by EmRose92
Summary: Charming sends his wife and daughter through the wardrobe and wakes in Storybrooke as David Nolan. But over the next 28 years, a strange girl named Emma weaves in and out of his life, sparking something deep inside him that not even a curse can suppress—a father's love for his little girl. Daddy Charming, hints of Snowing, Season 1 AU.
1. Prologue

There are a few of this sort of fic out there right now (Snow goes through the wardrobe with Emma instead Gepetto sending Pinocchio through), but I thought I'd give it a try. It'll be from David's point of view, and since it's 100% AU there will (obviously) be many places in which it deviates from the show (as in, Henry might not actually exist...sorry, Henry fans). I've broken it up into parts, and each part will have mini-sections to help keep it organized and coherent since I'm covering a LOT of time in a short space.

I'm always open for suggestions, comments, questions, and constructive criticism. Enjoy!

Emrose

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

**One**

He holds them in his arms one last time, and the world is caving in on itself around them but he cannot bear to let them go. 28 years without them is impossible, unfathomable, incomprehensible—he cannot see her face for the tears, but he has one hand wrapped tightly around her waist and his face buried in her hair, and his other hand is cradling the head of the daughter he loves more than he ever thought possible, and he has to let them go.

So he leads them to the wardrobe, and he blinks away his tears before he pulls away and looks at his wife in the eyes, and he smiles. It is a broken smile, but he knows that he must be the strong one, and so he brushes away her tears and kisses her forehead gently.

"Come find me," he whispers. "I'll be waiting for you."

"Charming…" her voice and his heart are breaking, and he cups her face in his hands and kisses her slowly, sweetly, memorizing the smell of her, the feel of her, the taste of her, and then he presses his lips to the crown of his baby girl's head and whispers, "Your father loves you, Emma. Don't ever, ever doubt that I will always and forever be yours."

Helping Snow and his beautiful child inside the wardrobe is the hardest thing he has ever done, but the wind is howling outside the windows and the walls feel as if they will crumble to the ground around them, and he cannot wait any longer. He stands there outside, looking down on them curled on the floor, Emma tucked in her mother's arms. His daughter is beginning to fuss, her eyes squeezed shut tight, little fists clenching and unclenching with the newness of being alive. Snow's face is wet and blotchy, her hair stringy and unkempt around her shoulders, but she has never looked more beautiful and he only wishes that he had told her more often how much he loved her.

"I love you," he says, but he does not know if she has heard him over the roar of the wind and the clamor of magic, and now a window has blown in and shards of glass are swirling around him, and it is time to let them go. He raises his voice, and it cracks with his grief. "I love you, Snow."

"I love you," she gasps, and then he closes the door. His hands are pressed flat against the rough wood finish as if he could stop them from vanishing. His chest aches with a pain deeper and sharper than any he has felt, and he wishes with all his heart that if he were to open the door they would still be there. One more time. Kiss Snow one more time, hold his Emma one last time, tell them he loves them just once, once more. But when he swings the doors open again they are gone, and he slides to his knees and lifts his head and cries out into the coming storm.

"So they're gone," he hears, and turns his head, unashamed of the tears trickling down his cheeks.

"Yes, they're gone," he spits, and half rises, but he does not have the strength to get up off his knees. "You're going to lose. They _will _find us, and Emma _will _break the curse, and heaven and hell help you when I get my _hands_ on you then."

The Evil Queen's teeth bare in rage, and she lifts one hand. He is sure he is about to die, but then the world explodes and collapses at the same time, and he is flung into darkness and despair and emptiness, and there is nothing at all.

* * *

Part I coming soon - it will be much longer, don't worry. This is just setting the scene. Let me know what you think!

*shameless plug for reviews*


	2. Part One

To all who favorited or followed: thank you! Here's the next chapter for you. David Nolan awakes in Storybrooke with no memory of his past.

* * *

**PART ONE: 16 Years**

* * *

He awakes with his wife's lips on his. "I'll be home for dinner," she whispers against his cheek. "It'll be your favorite." She presses another soft kiss to his lips, and then her heels click across the hardwood floor of their bedroom and the door opens and closes softly. He does not open his eyes—he does not have to be at work for a good hour after Kathryn, and the temptation to curl over and go back to sleep is too great to ignore. He reaches over to his right and steals her pillow, curling over onto it and fading back into a half-sleep.

He wakes forty-eight minutes later from a strange but not unpleasant dream in which he had been wandering a strange, wild, tangled forest carrying a sword in one hand and a map in the other. He had been looking for something, but the dream and its implications vanish as his brain registers the blinking red numbers on the clock on his bedside table.

He is late.

Brushing his teeth takes 30 seconds, he skips the coffee, and he's shrugging on his favorite black jacket and out the door with one shoe untied and his keys in hand in less than 4 minutes. It is a short drive to Storybrooke High, where he teaches political science and history, and he walks into the classroom just ahead of the last student.

"Morning, Mr. Nolan," one of the girls says as he weaves his way around the desks and arrives slightly out of breath at the front of the room.

"Morning, Jess," David Nolan says, and tucks his hands into his jeans pockets as the bell rings. "All rise for the pledge, please."

* * *

David Nolan drives his truck home that evening after football practice with the high school team with a stack of papers to grade, kisses his wife hello in the kitchen, eats meatloaf and potatoes, sits down to grade papers on the American Revolution and the Birth of Freedom from the Mother Country, watches half of a football game, brushes his teeth, showers, climbs into bed beside his already sleeping wife and falls asleep quickly.

He wakes the next morning with his wife's lips on his. "I'll be home for dinner," she whispers. She presses another soft kiss to his lips, and then her heels click across the hardwood floor. He does not open his eyes—he does not have to be to school for an hour yet, and the temptation to lie in bed and doze until his own alarm goes off is too strong. He reaches over to his right and steals her pillow, curling his body over the top of it and falling back into a dreamless sleep.

He wakes nearly an hour later, grabs a bit of toast on his way out the door, and arrives at school almost late with one shoe untied, just ahead of the last student.

"Morning, Mr. Nolan," one girl says as he makes his way to the front of the classroom.

"Morning, Jessica," he says, and tucks his hands into his jeans pockets as the bell rings. "All rise for the pledge, please."

David Nolan drives home that evening after football practice with the high school team with a stack of papers to grade. He kisses his wife hello in the kitchen, eats meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy, retires to the living room to watch football and grade papers, and crawls into bed beside his sleeping wife at nearly midnight. He kisses her on the cheek, rolls over, and falls into a peaceful sleep.

He wakes the next morning to his wife's lips on his. He wakes late. Goes to school. Coaches football. Eats dinner, grades papers. Watches the game, falls asleep on the couch, crawls up into bed and ducks under the covers at nearly midnight.

He wakes with his wife's lips on his.

* * *

One morning, David awakes in an empty bed. He wakes suddenly, with no provocation, and sits up with the feeling of just having woken from a dream, a strange dream he cannot grasp. The sensations and sounds and feelings drift away from him across the room and out the open window, and the more he tries to grab them back the faster they slip away. He swings his legs out of bed and pulls on clean jeans and a flannel, red-checked button-up that always makes him feel a little like a farmer and less like a high school political science teacher, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Kathryn hates the shirt, but he can tell from the quiet of the house that she is already gone for work, so she isn't around to roll her eyes at his choice and huff loudly until he relents and goes back upstairs to change.

As he brushes his teeth, he tries again to recall the dream. Flashes of sounds, like high wind and shattering glass, a female scream, the melancholy tug of sadness deep in his chest…that is all he can remember, and he wonders what sort of dream it must have been to leave such haunting after-impressions.

He cooks himself a mess of eggs and makes a black cup of coffee while he listens to the morning news. Storybrooke is not the most interesting of towns on a good day, and a rather boring one on a bad. He has often talked to Kathryn of moving somewhere more exciting…Boston, maybe, or New York, but she loves the sleepiness of the one-diner Main Street and the charm of the old clock tower and how everyone knows everyone, and he does not have the heart or the energy to argue with her. Or, at least, most days he doesn't.

It seems lately that all he and Kathryn do is fight, and since they're both established with good jobs and plenty of friends in this little town, talk of tearing up roots and starting over is one thing he figures he can sacrifice, just to avoid a little contention.

David parks his truck outside the high school and tucks a pile of papers he'd graded the night before under one arm.

"Morning, Leroy," he says in greeting, and the grumpy little janitor grunts back and continues to scrub spitwads off the display case in the foyer. David likes Leroy; the little man makes him laugh, and they've shared a pint or two on the weekends occasionally when there's nothing else to do and David doesn't feel like being home with a silent or irritable or melancholy wife.

(Sometimes things are still good—he'll come home to find that she's made meatloaf and potatoes (his favorite), and usually she'll kiss him good morning on her way out the door unless they've gone to bed angry the night before, or he's sleeping on the couch because they went to bed fighting. More often than not, however, she'll go to bed first and he'll stay up late watching football or grading assignments and crawl into bed beside her long after she's fallen asleep.

It isn't necessarily the healthiest marriage, he knows, but somehow he thinks that the less time they spend together, the less time there is for them to fight, and that can't be a bad thing.)

He walks into his classroom full of 15 and 16 year olds chatting and laughing and rustling papers and thumping each other and drops the stack of papers onto his desk with a thud.

"Morning, Mr. Nolan," a few voices chime, and he smiles around at them all—he has nearly shaken the melancholy feelings of that strange, wild dream, and he is about to tell them all about it to grab their attention before beginning a lecture on the War of 1812 when something completely strange and unexpected walks into the classroom.

It's a girl. A girl he does not know, one he has never seen before in his life. She is tall and thin, with long blonde hair swept out of her face and large blue eyes and a dimple in her chin. Everyone in the class turns to look at her, and the room falls silent faster than any story about his dream could have.

"Mr. Nolan, I have a new student for you," Mrs. Heals, the principal, says. She is standing next to the girl and looking just as bemused as he feels. "She's just moved to Storybrooke from Boston, and she'll be joining us for a while."

"Well, welcome," he says, and looks around for an empty desk. "Let's find you a place to sit." He walks down one row of desks to the back of the classroom and finds a spare one lurking in the far corner. He hauls it to the end of one row and smiles at the girl as she lifts her backpack off her shoulders and sets it down carefully next to the desk. "Storybrooke must feel a little small after the city," he says, feeling a little jealous, a little wistful, and a little confused. "But I'm sure you'll fit right in."

"Thanks," the girl says, and smiles. She has a nice smile, a cheerful one, but for just a moment he feels a surge of melancholy again before it fades away into the pit of his stomach like it had never been.

"I'm Mr. Nolan," he says. The class has begun to chatter again, quietly, and he is sure most of the whispers are about the new girl. She seems to think so too, but it doesn't seem to bother her. "And you are?"

"Emma," the girl says. "My name is Emma."

* * *

The girl Emma is with their class for a few weeks, and for those few weeks David feels more alive and awake than he ever remembers feeling. The world is sharper, clearer, more real, somehow, and he wakes every morning before Kathryn and hurries to school just to be there when she arrives. He cannot and does not want to explain how he feels to anyone, because he knows how people would react and it would be decidedly _not _good for a high school political science teacher to proclaim his fascination with a 16 year old girl, even if his intentions are entirely honorable and innocent (which they are).

Emma is a good student, a clever girl, but rather quiet. She does not make friends or attempt to talk to anyone around her, he notices, but she does her work and gets good marks. He is content to pore over her assignments with a fine-tooth comb after Kathryn is in bed, looking for something, anything, that will tell him why she has gripped at his very heart and soul in a way he cannot understand.

He is happier, calmer, and even Kathryn's demands and their petty disagreeances are muted and less horrible than usual. He feels stronger, lighter, as if a weight he has been carrying for years has been suddenly lifted. He finds himself looking over his shoulder for someone even when he is expecting no one, finds that his hands feel empty even when he is holding Kathryn's, finds himself listening for footsteps or laughter when he is alone in the house. It is strange, this wanting, this longing, that has come over him, and he knows he is not longing for Kathryn and it makes him feel horrible and miserable and dirty even while it makes him feel more _himself _than he ever remembers feeling.

He can only assume it has something to do with Emma.

But David cannot sort out any way to approach her without seeming (and feeling) like a lecherous old bugger. So he simply smiles at her and greets her (and the rest of his students) when she comes into class, writes generic, teacher-ly things like _excellent work _and _creative thinking, I'm impressed _on her papers, and does his best to not think of her when he goes home in the evenings and (on good days) gathers Kathryn into his arms and watches a movie with her on the sofa or (on bad days) settles down with a quilt and a throw pillow to fall asleep on the sofa grading papers and watching football.

But Emma and her blue eyes and her smile and her quietness and unexpectedness is always there to greet him in the mornings.

* * *

Emma has been in his class for two and a half weeks when he realizes he has no idea how long she is staying or even where she is staying. Storybrooke is not large, and he sees most of his students' parents at least once a week for activities, pick-ups and drop-offs, or just around town at Granny's or the supermarket or the library. But he has never seen or had the chance to talk to Emma's mother or father.

So one day after class he pulls her aside as the students are gathering their things and chattering about the weekend and asks.

"Emma, any idea how long you'll be in town? I'm looking at the end of the semester and I'd love to factor you in to end-of-semester group projects if you're gonna be around."

"Oh, um," Emma says. She is always a little shy in class, but he has never approached her before and he hadn't realized just how shy she is. She won't even look him in the face. "I don't know, I'll have to…have to ask my mom."

He does not want to pry, but something warm has thrilled through him and he grabs at something else to say as she hauls her backpack over one shoulder. "Have your parents found a position here in Storybrooke, then? Or are you just visiting family?"

"It's just me and my mom," Emma says. "And we haven't found anything. We're just visiting. Extended visiting. My mom…she grew up around here. We're staying at Granny's." Emma still has not looked him in the eyes, and he knows he's being nosy and probably crossing a few dozen lines, but he rationalizes it as a teacher's concern for a student who might be struggling and presses on.

"Your mom grew up around here, really? What's her name? I might know her, I grew up around these parts too."

Emma's eyes finally flicker to his, and for one bizarre moment he thinks he sees _fear _in her eyes, and he takes a step back instinctively. She swallows.

"I'd rather not say," she says. And then she backpedals. "I mean, I've _got _a mom. Don't think I don't, I'm not just on my own, don't worry about that—she's just…we're just…private. We don't…"

"I'm not trying to pry," he says quickly. "Really." He smiles at her, but she does not relax—she looks tense, ready to run, and he steps back again, his heart clenching. He is confused at her violent reaction to his questions, but he feels bad already for approaching her so unexpectedly. "I just want to know if I can help. Let your mom know I asked, all right? If she wants to come in and visit with me about how long you'll be staying she's more than welcome. My door is always open." He smiles brightly at her again and retreats quickly to his office at the back of the classroom, leaving her standing there in the aisle with her backpack on one shoulder and (if he'd turned around to notice) a devastated, proud, resigned sort of look on her face. He sits down at his desk and sets his elbows on the top, clenching his fingers behind his head and running them through his hair.

He has finally placed a label on the feeling that had surged strong and fierce inside him at the sight of her fear: he wants to_protect _her. Protect her from _what _he does not know, especially since it seems that she had wanted protecting from _him. _The possibility makes him sick.

* * *

On Monday, Emma does not show up to class. David does not let it affect his teaching, but he is concerned, and he _knows_ that it is somehow his fault. He goes home that night and falls asleep on the couch.

He wakes feeling groggy and confused, and when he arrives at school Emma is not in class.

She does not show up for the rest of the week.

On Friday afternoon, after a week of climbing the walls and asking his students if they know if the new girl is sick or out of town, David makes his way down to the principal's office and inquires after her. Mrs. Heals pulls up a few files on her computer, looking vaguely confused.

"She withdrew from school earlier this week," she said. "No explanation. She and her mother just passing through, I suppose. Sweet woman. Nice little family."

David's gut clenches, and he has the inexplicable urge to run out of the office, jump into his truck, and chase them down, though heaven knows they could be anywhere in the world by now. He realizes that one fist is clenched so tightly down at his side that his fingernails have nearly broken the skin, and he relaxes it carefully and swallows a few times before he can respond. Luckily, Mrs. Heals does not seem to notice.

"That's too bad," he says, and his voice is completely calm and collected, to his great relief. "Emma's mom, I never met her. Emma said she grew up around here—did you recognize her?"

Mrs. Heals shrugs. "Can't say I did. Sorry, David. Pretty woman. Dark hair, big blue eyes. About your age."

David nods, makes small talk for a moment more without his heart really in it, and leaves her office.

He goes home and sleeps on the couch again. He has slept there all week. Kathryn has not said a word about it.

He dreams of chasing something or someone through a wild, tangled forest, but when he wakes up he does not remember dreaming.

* * *

Review! I'd love to hear what you think - if no one is reading or liking, there's not much point in continuing to post, right? Am I blackmailing you? Possibly. Shamelessly. But really, I'd love to hear what you think so far. :) Thanks for reading!

Next up: More time passes, and David Nolan's life slowly begins to change as he continues to run into Emma as the years go on.


	3. Part Two

Thanks to those who reviewed, alerted, and favorited! This chapter is a little shorter than the last one, but it does feature the appearance of Mary Margaret, for those of you who were wondering where she was. This fic is definitely focused more on Emma and David, and hopefully this chapter explains a little of why Mary Margaret is choosing to stay out of the picture as much as possible for the 28 year curse. To answer another question, yes...Emma does know who David is. But the premise of this story hinges on the fact that he forgets her every time he's not around her - the curse won't let him remember the Savior, though he is drawn to her every time she comes into town to check on things. The question of Mary Margaret growing older will be answered later. :)

Hopefully that clears up the questions. There's no easy way to explain them in the story, so I thought I'd get them answered here to clear up potential confusion, though these ideas will become more obvious as the years go by.

Thanks for reading!

Emrose

* * *

**PART TWO: 19 Years**

David Nolan does not mind being alone. He has always enjoyed solitude, always enjoyed being alone with his thoughts or his work or just alone with nothing at all.

But sometimes he sits in the living room at just past midnight or in his empty office well after school hours and wonders if he's missing something. Sometimes he believes that the something he is missing is Kathryn, and that's when he stops by French's Floral on his way home from school and picks up a bouquet of her favorite flowers or sneaks up behind her in the kitchen and wraps his arms around her from behind just because he can.

But most of the time he does not think that Kathryn is the answer, and that bothers him very, very much. He is not the kind of man to look for love or affection or companionship from someone he is _not _married to, and even if he and Kathryn have never had a smooth marriage he would never even entertain the possibility of cheating on her.

Besides, he has never met a woman who has even managed to turn his head.

Until the evening he is taking a walk to cool down after a rather tense debate between he and his wife over the recycling (it was stupid, really, but somehow it had escalated until she was crying angry tears and he'd nearly bitten through his tongue with trying not to shout at her) and he sees two women across the street. They are walking the same direction he is, a little behind him, at about the same pace.

He does not recognize them—one is thin and blonde, wrapped snugly in a dark jacket, jeans, and a scarf, and the other is shorter, curvy, sporting a light blue beanie over cropped black hair, and quite possibly the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and he cannot even see her clearly from here.

He starts across the street towards them almost before he realizes what he is doing. He stops halfway there, wondering what he is going to say, how he is going to introduce himself, and how much of an idiot he might look.

David Nolan decides it's worth it.

So he marches across the street, and before the two women have realized he's heading in their direction he is close enough to wave, smile brightly, and introduce himself.

"Hi," he says. "David Nolan. You look lost—can I help you find something?"

He glances at the blonde woman, and he cannot help but smile at the look of shock on her face. From the way she is dressed and the way she is staring from him to the woman next to her and then up and down the street, he figures she isn't from a place in which people offer directions often. But then he looks at the dark-haired woman, and he knows without a doubt that she is, in fact, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and even more beautiful up close than she was across the street.

"I'm David," he says again before remembering that he's already said it.

But the dark-haired woman is looking anywhere but at him—she seems in even more distress than the blonde woman, and he realizes suddenly that he's probably walked straight into a very private discussion. He feels instantly awkward, and tries to apologize.

"Sorry, am I…am I interrupting something? I didn't mean to pry, I just thought you might use some help."

"Thanks, David," the blonde woman says, and smiles at him though the smile doesn't reach her eyes. One hand snakes around the other woman's waist, who has turned her face deliberately away from David. He is sure she is crying, and something in his heart cracks a little. "But we're fine. We were just passing through."

"Can I…can I help with anything? Anything at all?" He is looking at the blonde woman but addressing her companion, and he has the strangest urge to reach out and touch her shoulder, offer her comfort, but he doesn't think that would go over well, and he's not in the mood to be taken for a kidnapper or rapist or something.

"No, thank you," the blonde woman says, and she smiles again, more genuinely. "But it's charming of you to offer."

The dark-haired woman lets out what sounds like a snort, but it is accompanied by a wet sob, and she presses her hands to her mouth, turns, and starts to walk away from them both down the street. David stares after her, unable to help himself—he has a vague feeling that _he _is the cause of her distress, but he doesn't see how that could be, and the feeling is gone before he has even recognized it.

"Is she going to be alright?" he asks. "I'm sorry for running up to you like that. It wasn't charming of me at all, I should be ashamed of myself."

"No, it's not your fault," the blonde woman says. She twists her head to look down the street after her companion. "Thank you for offering. But I really should be going after her." She takes a step backward awkwardly, and her eyes are searching his face like she's trying to memorize him, deep and intense and none of the shyness she'd exhibited earlier. "Goodbye, David."

"Yeah, so long," he says, because she has very obviously ended the conversation and he does not want to be nuisance, does not want to bother her more than he already has. He watches her as she leaves—she can't be older than nineteen or twenty, a few years younger than the other woman, maybe, and he decides that maybe they are sisters, or cousins.

He watches the blonde woman reach her companion's side halfway down the street and wrap an arm around her waist, and together they walk away without looking back.

* * *

David thinks of nothing but the dark-haired woman for the rest of the evening. Ten minutes after he let the two women walk away from him he is ready to slap himself silly for being stupid enough to let them go. He walks the streets of Storybrooke looking for them, but they are nowhere to be found.

So he stops into Granny's, which is the hub for all gossip and interesting town activity, and sinks down onto a bar stool. He orders his usual, and when Ruby pours him the glass he asks her.

"Did two strange women come in here earlier tonight?" He tries to sound casual and faintly disinterested, but he knows he hasn't pulled it off when Ruby gives him the eye and a slightly flirtatious, comrade-in-arms sort of smirk.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I just…do," David says lamely. "And I can tell from the look on your face that they did. Happen to catch their names?"

"No, sorry," Ruby says, and scrubs half-heartedly at an invisible spot on the countertop, glancing at her grandmother as she does, who isn't paying attention. "But they were talking about finding someone. They didn't get a room, so they must have found whoever it was they were looking for."

"Oh." David is disappointed. More than disappointed. He doesn't feel in the mood to discuss it further, so he downs the alcohol in two swallows and leaves.

He walks the streets for a long time, thinking about nothing and feeling a great weight in his chest and a pressure in his skull that has nothing to do with alcohol. He feels melancholy, lost, and a little afraid, and so he walks and walks until it is past midnight and he finds himself at the toll bridge outside town.

He leans over the railing and watches the water tumbling downstream. The moon is bright enough that he can make out the eddies and currents and individual rocks and the tips of tangled branches from the surrounding forest sticking up out of the shallow riverbed.

The bridge creaks, and he turns to see the blonde woman walking towards him out of the darkness. His heart leaps, and he straightens and waits for her to approach with something like hope stirring in his stomach and chest.

"Hey," he says. "I heard you'd left town."

"On my way out," she says, and smiles. "I just wanted to thank you for offering to help earlier."

"It was my pleasure," he says, trying to push away the disappointed feeling at hearing she is leaving. "Really."

"And…" the blonde woman hesitates. "I wanted to apologize for my sister. She's been looking for someone for a very long time, and we thought he might be here in Storybrooke."

"And was he?"

She nods slowly. "Yes, he was. But he…he's not who he used to be. And I don't think she realized just how hard that would be on her."

"People can change," David says. He crosses his arms across his chest, unsure why he is suddenly so invested in these two women and their story. "Maybe he'll come around?"

The woman smiles brightly, but her eyes are bright too, too bright, and he has to resist the urge to offer words of comfort he does not think he could find even if it was appropriate.

"Oh, he will," she says, and though he knows she is on the verge of tears her voice is strong. "It'll just take some time. She's waited my whole life for him, so what's another few years, right?"

She sounds as if she is seeking comfort, and the urge to offer it surges strong and deep inside him, and before he knows what he's doing he is reaching out to touch her shoulder. But she backs away, turns, stuffs her hands in her pockets, and he pulls back.

"Well, I should be going," she says. "Thanks again."

"Yeah, sure," he says. "Sure. Anytime. Really. If you're ever back in town, just look me up. It's David."

"David Nolan, yeah, you said," she says over her shoulder. "Thank you, David."

He lifts a hand and watches her walk away for the second time, and as she vanishes into the darkness beyond the bridge the melancholy trickles back into his head and heart and chest, and he leans back over the railing and stares down at the water until a buzzing fills his head and he thinks and feels nothing at all.

* * *

_He is kneeling on a hard wood floor and there is a great rushing of wind all around him. His hands are stretched out in front of him, palms pressed against something hard and flat, like a wooden panel or wall. He cannot breathe. Somewhere, a woman is screaming. A powerful, sickening stench of something sharp and sweet is in his nose and mouth, and he gags. It is dark and cold and his head is splitting with internal pressure, and a baby, somewhere far away, is crying._

He wakes on the couch in the morning with a splitting headache. As he fumbles around in the downstairs bathroom for Advil, he catches a sudden whiff of something sickly sweet. He takes a few deep breaths, but the smell is gone as fast as it came. So he downs three of the tiny round pills, brushes his teeth, and goes back out to the living room to turn on the game.

* * *

Review if you enjoyed! Or even if you didn't!


	4. Part Three

We introduce Henry. Also, Mayor Mills has decided to make an appearance, and the David/Kathryn business ends (thank goodness).

Thank you all for reading, reviewing, favoriting, following, etc. Enjoy!

* * *

**PART THREE: 21 Years**

He wakes in an empty bed. It has been empty for, oh, hardly remembers, but perhaps several weeks, or maybe a few months. Kathryn is rooming at Granny's for the time being and he cannot say he misses her. He should, he knows, and some part of him does, deep down, but he thinks it is more that he misses how they used to be long ago than that he misses _her._

He has memories of being very, very happily married, so happily married that his chest aches just thinking of it, but none of the memories are clear, and when they come to him (as they are now, lying here alone in his and Kathryn's bed, staring at the ceiling on a Saturday morning) they are more impressions and sensations than images and voices, like a dream long forgotten.

David closes his eyes, and the memories tug at the edges of his mind, sharper and more insistent than they have been in a long while. He grips handfuls of blanket in both fists, as if the rough, tactile sensation of flannel against his rough palms will sharpen the memories.

_Female laughter. A large, spacious room with a bay window. Dark, curly hair tangled in his fingers. More laughter. _

He opens his eyes, frustrated and a little embarrassed. Is he remembering a dream, or his marriage to Kathryn? He doesn't remember her ever having dark hair, and he is sure they have never had a bay window. How strange.

He rolls out of bed and the memories trickle away as he dresses and pads barefoot downstairs to fix himself a bowl of cereal.

Twenty minutes later he is sliding into the cab of his truck and starting the engine. There is no school, no football practice until early afternoon, and his truck has been making unnatural rattling noises that he is determined to fix himself (high school teachers' salary doesn't lend him much leeway as far as truck repairs go, especially not with highly-probably divorce fees looming in his near future).

"Good morning, Mr. Nolan."

He is on his back under his truck, but he peers out from behind the front tire to see a pair of black pumps and the long legs belonging to Mayor Mills parked a foot or two away. He edges out from under the truck and grabs a rag to wipe away the grease from his right hand. He sees immediately that it is pointless.

"Sorry, Mayor, I'd shake your hand, but…" he waves his blackened hand in the air and she smiles and shakes her head.

"No need for formalities. I was just wondering if you'd seen Henry."

"Henry?" Oh, yes, the Mayor's beloved dog. A slightly mischievous but fairly loveable beagle with a tendency to wander off at inconvenient times.

"Oh, no…" Mayor Mills brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes and looks out across the street. "I'll find him. Sorry to interrupt your work."

"No trouble. Sure you don't want help? I'd be happy to."

She pauses and looks him in the eyes. He tries his best to look sincere. He's not the biggest fan of the way Mayor Mills runs the town, but she is a good friend of Kathryn's and he knows it'll be to his advantage to make a good impression on his soon-to-be ex-wife's circle of confidants if the divorce proceedings get heated. Besides, he likes her dog, quirky little habits and all.

Mayor Mills apparently decides he's trustworthy, because she finally sighs and nods. "Thank you. I'd appreciate it. Just give me a call if he turns up, okay?"

"Sure." David scrubs fruitlessly at his hands as he watches her walk away, gives up, tosses the rag in the back of the truck, and heads off in the opposite direction.

He is walking down the sidewalk wondering where to begin his search when he sees something strange and unexpected.

This strange and unexpected something is a young woman, probably in her early twenties, walking down the sidewalk towards him. She is wearing a brown leather jacket and her long blonde hair is pulled up in a ponytail at the crown of her head. She is wearing glasses and leather boots, and she is a complete stranger.

Strangers aren't something Storybrooke is used to seeing, and so when she gets close enough David acts on instinct (impulse) and smiles at her. "Hi," he says. "Beautiful day."

She smiles back, a little tentatively, and nods. "Gorgeous."

"I'm David," he says, and holds out a hand before remembering that it's stained yellow and gray and black with engine oil. She glances at it and he withdraws it quickly. "Sorry. I won't make you shake that."

She laughs, and he thinks oddly for a moment that her laugh is familiar, but then the moment is gone and he has forgotten about it.

"Are you new here?" he asks, surprised at his boldness, but he has never been one to reign in his curiosity. "Storybrooke doesn't get many visitors."

"Yeah, I can tell," she says, glancing up the street. "Sleepy little place, isn't it?"

"You could say that," he says. "Not a whole lot happens here."

"Yeah, I can see that." She gives him a quick up-and-down, but it's not so much checking him out as taking him in. Something warm flares in his chest.

"Sorry, I didn't catch your name," he says, and she bites her lip and grins a little.

"I didn't give it." She pauses. "It's Emma. My name is Emma."

* * *

Emma is 21, a college student on break from Boston, and when she hears that David is looking for a dog she volunteers to help him look.

"I'm good at finding things," she says, and he agrees to let her tag along.

"So, what brings you to Storybrooke?" he asks. She stuffs her hands in her back jeans pockets and shrugs.

"Just out for a drive. I have a thing for small towns tucked away in the middle of nowhere."

"Well, you hit the jackpot with this small town," he says. "It's about as nowhere as you can get."

"No kidding." But she doesn't seem to mind it—she is taking it all in, in fact, and the way she examines every house, every shop, every street corner, is like she's trying to commit it all to memory.

"So, where are you from originally?" David asks. Having a conversation with her is like pulling teeth, but he feels strangely drawn to her, and he has not felt so relaxed since Kathryn moved out (whenever that was).

Emma shrugs. "Here and there. My mom and I move around a lot."

"Just you and her?"

She nods. "Yep. Always just been the two of us. My dad…left…when I was a baby."

"I'm sorry." And he genuinely is. No girl should lose her father, he thinks, and no woman should lose her husband or lover or whatever he was. Instinct tells him to reach out and touch her shoulder, her arm, but he catches himself in time and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets instead. "I bet he regrets that now."

Emma is quiet for a moment. "He didn't want to leave," she says finally, and looks him in the eyes. Her stare is intense, like she's trying to tell him something without words. "He had to. That's…that's kind of what I'm doing, here. Looking for him."

"And…you think he's in Storybrooke?" He doesn't want to sound skeptical, but Storybrooke isn't really the place that missing fathers retire to when they're done being family men.

Emma smiles but doesn't respond. She looks out across the street (they have nearly reached the ocean now) and shields her eyes against the glare of the sun on the water. "Hey, is that the dog you're looking for?"

He shields his eyes too and looks out at the old playground near the water's edge. A small brown shape is pattering around in the sand by the swings, and he grins. "That's him. Good eye."

"I told you…I'm good at finding things."

Emma is only in town for a few hours, but he manages to convince her to let him buy her lunch at Granny's before she heads out to thank her for helping him find Henry. They sit across a table from each other and David has to stop himself from staring at her. Something about this young woman is so familiar, and he has finally placed what that something was he felt when she was talking about her father—he had wanted to _protect _her. She does not seem the type of woman to need protecting, but nevertheless he wants to and he does not know why.

"So," he says when their food arrives (they ordered the exact same dish, which made them laugh and made David feel warm and comfortable). "How long have you been looking for your father?"

Emma chews on a french fry reflectively and washes it down with a swallow of water. "My whole life, I guess," she says slowly. "My mom and I are always looking. Sometimes we get close to finding him. Every few years we think maybe, just maybe, we have…but it's never quite him. Not yet. So we keep waiting. Someday we'll turn around and he'll be right there, right where he's always been."

This is the most she's said to him yet, and he doesn't want her to lose momentum. "What makes you so sure you'll find him?"

Emma's lip twitches. "Hope. We have hope we will."

"Hope…hope can be a powerful thing," he says, and though he's not sure where the words came from, they feel good.

"My mom says the same thing." She is watching him, practically dissecting him with her gaze, and he stares back at her solidly until she realizes what she's doing and looks away with a blush.

"Sorry," she says. "You look a little like him, you know. My dad. Old pictures."

"Oh," David says. "Handsome guy, then."

She looks up, startled, and then laughs. He likes making her laugh.

When she stands up to leave, he insists on walking her to her car. She walks him out to the curb and down a few streets to where she's parked a little yellow bug in front of a meter. She fishes for her keys in one jeans pocket and then looks at him as if she's about to say something. Her mouth opens, closes, and opens again.

"Thanks for lunch," she says, though he's 99% certain that's not what she set out to say.

"Thanks for the help with Henry," he says. "Mayor Mills was thrilled."

Emma's lips drop into a slight frown—she had been quiet when they'd dropped Henry off at the Mansion…hadn't said a word in fact, though Mayor Mills had thanked her warmly several times. He doesn't think they have ever met, but he can tell that Emma does _not _like the Mayor in the slightest, which both intrigues and bothers him.

"Glad to help," she says.

"Hey, if you're ever in town again, feel free to stop by," he says impulsively as she gets into her car. Everything he's done today seems to have been done by impulse. "Maybe I can return the favor and help you look for your father."

She smiles, but he sees tears glinting in her big blue eyes and that need, that _need _to protect her surges wild and powerful inside him. "Thanks," she says. "I might take you up on that."

And then she closes the door and starts the engine, and he steps back and watches her drive away.

He goes home and tinkers with his truck for a few minutes, and then goes inside to call his lawyer.

* * *

Review!


	5. Part Four

Thank you all for your reviews and interest! I'm thinking we're about halfway through this at this point. This chapter involves a flashback, Mayor Mills, and David slowly starting to realize that he is remembering things involving a certain blonde who keeps cropping up in his life.

* * *

**PART FOUR: 25 Years**

One morning, he wakes in an empty bed and realizes that he no longer wants to be alone. He does not know what might have brought about this change of heart, but he is suddenly and desperately tired of the same routine. Over and over again, day in and day out, he wakes, makes coffee, teaches school, coaches football, comes home, grades papers and assignments, and falls into bed. Sometimes he goes for days without adult interaction beyond a _hello _in the hallways from a colleague.

Kathryn has long since moved across town, and he does not see her often. Occasionally they will run into each other at the supermarket, and they are always civil but distant, as good exes should be. He does not miss her.

But he misses someone. Someone, he thinks as he towels off after a cold shower, that he has been looking for for a long time, maybe since before his marriage to Kathryn. She has never been his other half, not if he is honest with himself, and sometimes he doesn't remember why he married her in the first place. She's a nice woman, a smart woman, but try as he might he cannot feel anything but complete and utter apathy towards her.

"What do you think?" he asks his reflection, crossing his bare arms over his chest. "Did you ever really love her?"

He doesn't have an answer to his own question. The one thing he does not understand is how he knows what it feels like to love if he never loved his wife.

It's all too confusing to think about this early in the morning, so he gets dressed and heads down the stairs.

There is a yellow bug parked outside his house when he leaves 20 minutes later, a stack of graded papers under one arm and the keys to his truck in the other. He pauses. Frowns. It's an unfamiliar car, and unfamiliar cars are few and far between in Storybrooke. He passes his truck, dropping the papers into the bed, and makes his way down the drive and out the gate, stopping in front of the bug. There is no one inside, but when he looks up the street a young woman is walking towards him with a paper cup of coffee in her hands.

"Hi," she says. She is pretty, with long blonde hair and large blue eyes. She is wearing a tan turtleneck under a red leather jacket, and it brings out her pale skin and pink cheeks. "Brisk out, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he says, a little warily. "Football season."

"Sorry about my bug," she says, gesturing at it with her free hand. "It's not in your way, is it?"

"No, no," he says, glancing back at his truck in the driveway. "Not at all. I was just surprised to see it, that's all. We don't get many visitors in Storybrooke."

"Oh, I've been here before," she says. "I'm looking for someone who might live here."

"Yeah? Who? I might be able to point you in the right direction." He is rapidly warming up to her, this young woman with a slightly melancholy air who has walked up to him with such confidence, a confidence that almost feels as if she knows him better than he knows her. Which is impossible, seeing as he's never met her before in his life.

She hesitates and takes a sip of her coffee. "His name is…James."

"Last name? We've got a few of those," David says. She shrugs.

"I don't know. My mom and I have been looking for him for a while. My dad," she adds. "He's my dad. I've never met him, but…" she pauses again, and a little smile wisps across her face. "He's around here somewhere."

David doesn't know exactly how to respond to this, so he just sticks out his hand. "Well, I hope you find him. I'm David, by the way. David Nolan."

"Hello, David," she says, but doesn't take his hand. He lowers it awkwardly, and though he's not sure what to make of her he feels a sudden warmth thrill through his stomach and up to his chest when she smiles at him softly. "I'm Emma."

* * *

_He is coaching his team one crisp fall evening and thinking about the stack of papers he has to grade that evening when he notices a small girl standing on the edge of the field, watching him. He glances around for her parents, but the only adults around are himself and his assistant coach. He hands his clipboard full of plays and notes to his assistant and jogs towards her. _

"_Hello," he says when he's close enough to address her without shouting. "Where's your mommy, little lady?"_

"_She's not here," the little girl says obviously. She is a pretty little thing, with short, cropped blonde hair and blue eyes that take up half her face. David looks around again, fruitlessly, and then squats down in front of her. He's always been a sucker for kids, but he doesn't recognize her._

"_What's your mommy's name?" he asks._

_She looks up at him solemnly. "I'm not supposed to tell you that," she says. _

"_What?" he laughs a little and shrugs exaggeratedly. "How am I supposed to help you find her if I don't know who she is?"_

"_Oh, I know where she is."_

"_Oh yeah?" He stands and looks around again. "Is she coming back here?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Why'd she leave you here without anyone to play with?"_

"_Because she said you'd take care of me."_

_His heart skips a beat. He does not know this little girl, but he suddenly feels extraordinarily protective. He bends down to her level again and wishes he could take her hand or touch her head or something, but he knows there are laws and regulations against this sort of thing, and the last thing he wants is for Sheriff Graham to come breathing down his neck per order of the Madame Mayor for crossing the student-teacher boundaries. _

"_Did she now? How did your mommy know I could do that?"_

_The little girl smiles shyly at him. Her hands are tucked inside her pink jacket, and she lifts one shoulder in an imitation of his shrug. "She says she'll see you soon. You just hafta wait."_

_That hasn't answered his question, but he is more confused than ever. Before he can continue questioning her, however, a car pulls up on the street and Ruby, the waitress at Granny's Diner, steps out and starts towards them. David stands, watching her approach, and he knows that she's going to take this little princess to her mother and wants to take her to her mother himself._

"_I'm here for the kid," Ruby says. She is chewing a stick of gum loudly and keeps popping it between her red lips. "Mom's ready to go."_

"_Yeah, who _is _her mom?" David asks. _

_Ruby shrugs and pops her gum again. "Beats me. Never seen her before. She came into the diner looking a mess—poor thing was an emotional wreck." Ruby doesn't look sympathetic. "All we could get out of her was that she'd left her daughter by the football field with the coach and would we go pick her up." She puts a hand on the little girl's shoulder. Her nails are long and cherry red just like her lipstick. "So here I am. Anything to keep the customers happy, you know? Come on, Emma."_

_As he watches the little girl walk away he cannot make sense of this puzzle, and he is oh so tempted to cancel the rest of practice and follow Ruby and the little blonde girl—Emma?—back to the diner to find this mystery mother. But as he half turns towards his truck he sees his assistant waving him over, and both the child and her mother fade slowly from his mind like frost warming on a windshield. By the time he has jogged back to his assistant to tell him he's cutting out of practice early to run to Granny's, he no longer remembers why._

_He never sees the little girl again._

* * *

**25 Years**

David wakes with a start from a dream that he knows is no dream, but a memory. He has not thought of that little girl by the football field since the day he saw her there, pink jacket and blue eyes and full of confidence in his ability to take care of her. He has fallen asleep on the couch, something he has not done since the divorce was finalized, and he picks himself up with a groan, rubbing at a kink in his neck.

"Emma," he says slowly. "Her name was Emma."

Like the girl in the yellow bug from yesterday. Emma is not an uncommon name, but he thinks that it cannot be a coincidence. He does not really believe in coincidences, not really, and as he throws on clean jeans and a new shirt he wonders if that young woman is still in Storybrooke, if she stayed the night, if she has found her dad.

Something tells him she has.

But when he arrives at Granny's diner and asks after a blonde girl named Emma, Ruby shrugs and shakes her head.

"She left," she says. "Ate breakfast this morning and took off bright and early. Sorry, David."

"How long ago? How long?" His heart is suddenly aching, and he feels an urge to shout and scream and break something, because she is gone, and all he said yesterday was _hope you find him _and she could be in another state by now because he let her go.

Ruby is watching him with more than a little concern, and he realizes that his fists are white-knuckle clenched on the countertop, and he sounds more than a little frantic.

"Sorry," he says, and unclenches his fists with great effort. "Just didn't expect her to be gone already."

"You know her?" Ruby asks, leaning against the counter interestedly. Ruby has always been one for gossip.

"No. Well, yes, maybe. Listen, Ruby, do you remember a little girl about…oh, I don't know, twenty years ago…" but even as he starts to explain he hears how stupid the words sound, and Ruby is just watching him blankly. He sighs and turns to go. "Nevermind," he says. "Forget it. Thanks, Ruby."

He stops outside the diner and looks up and down the street, the frustration melting into a quiet sort of melancholy. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and starts off down the street towards his truck; it was a long shot, really, and it couldn't have been the same Emma. The odds were…well, fantastical. Impossible. Ridiculous that he would have even…

"Do watch where you're going, Mr. Nolan!"

He has almost run straight into Mayor Mills, and he stops short, blinking.

"Sorry, Madame Mayor," he says. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

"Obviously," she says. "Something on your mind?"

He considers telling her about Emma, but he has already convinced himself that he's crazy for even drawing the connection between the little girl in his dream and the young woman in the yellow bug looking for her father, so he generalizes and injects a healthy amount of self-deprecation into his voice.

"Chasing a dream," he says, and laughs, though it sounds slightly pathetic. "And a yellow bug."

"Sounds intriguing," she says, but she doesn't really sound intrigued at all. She is looking at him warily, and he is reminded again what a beautiful woman she really is, if only she would smile more and scowl at Storybooke a little less. "Well, I hope you find your dream, and your…yellow bug."

"Well, they're both long gone, but it can't hurt to hope," he says. He is looking over her head and squinting in the bright morning sunlight glancing off the front windshield of his truck, so he does not see her eyebrows crease at the word _hope._ "I'll find her."

"Her?"

He blinks again, looks back at the Mayor, who's face is suddenly tight.

"Oh, the young woman who was here yesterday," he says. "Emma, she said her name was. Emma."

* * *

I'd love to hear what you think!


	6. Part Five

To answer a few questions: the time issue will be answered, don't worry. No, David isn't aging. And no, Snow isn't aging either. Yes, Emma is aging. And it will all be explained! Also, Emma used "James" as a convenient fake name for the man she was looking for since using David's real name (David, or worse, "Charming") would be a little harder to explain.

We're getting much closer to the curse being broken, and as the 28 year mark gets closer, David's interactions with Emma bring him closer and closer to remembering things the curse is hiding. So his concept of time (especially when she comes to Storybrooke) is slowly starting to sync with real time (which is disorienting for the poor man since the curse is still, of course, not broken).

Thank you for your attention with this story! We're getting closer!

* * *

**PART FIVE: 26 Years**

She slides into the booth opposite him at Granny's with a mug of what looks like hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon. David looks up from the newspaper to see long blonde hair and big blue eyes, and blinks. She is a stranger, something that Storybrooke doesn't see often.

"Hi," she says. "Mind if I sit here?"

"Uh, sure," he says, but something about the quality of her voice and maybe that hot chocolate is feeling familiar, and he looks at her more closely until she snickers and takes another sip of her hot chocolate.

"Do I have something on my face?"

"No, sorry," he says, though she does actually have a smear of whipped cream on her upper lip. He decides to ignore it. "You just look familiar."

She freezes with her mug halfway to her lips again, and her eyes widen until they seem like they're taking up half her face. He cocks his head at her.

"What, do I have something on my face?"

She laughs, and he _knows _that laugh is familiar, and he starts to search his memory. Sometime, somewhere, he has heard that laugh before.

"Dad jokes," she says. "They're so bad."

For some reason this goes straight to his heart. He clears his throat and leans back. He has always wanted children, but it had never worked between him and Kathryn, and now he's not sure he'll ever get the chance to be a father at all. "Well, good to know I've got them down if I ever have the chance to use them," he says lightly (at least, he hopes it sound light). But the young woman smiles softly at him, and he knows she somehow understands exactly what he was thinking.

"So," he says. "Who do I have the pleasure of eating breakfast with?"

"My name is Emma," she says, and though she seems more focused on her hot chocolate than on him, he isn't stupid, and he can tell she's just as invested in this conversation as he suddenly is.

So he calls her out on it.

"And why, Emma, did you decide to come sit at one of the only booths at Granny's that has someone else already sitting here on a Saturday morning in Storybrooke, Maine?"

Emma glances around the diner—it _is _mostly empty. The high school is on Spring Break, so every teenager in town is still asleep at 10:24 on a Tuesday, and most of Storybrooke does not have the luxury of being a teacher with periodic breaks from the 9-5 workday.

"Just thought the company might be nice," she says.

"For you or for me?"

"Both."

David folds his arms across his chest and smiles at her. "Have we met, Emma?"

Her eyes widen again, but she conceals her surprise a little better this time, though he is not fooled. She knows him, he knows, and he thinks he knows her, and she knows that he knows, and he wants to know why.

"I don't think so," she says. "Why?"

"Why were you so surprised when I said you look familiar?"

"You're being very direct," she says, and though she's deflecting his questions he lets her. For now.

"I could say the same thing of you," he says, gesturing at her. "We don't get a lot of strangers in Storybrooke…especially not strangers that act like they know the resident high school football coach. That's me, by the way."

"I figured."

David waits, but she seems to be collecting her thoughts, and he is content to watch her. He feels comfortable with her here despite the strangeness of the situation, and all thoughts of grading and papers and catch-up work and later football practice has fled from his mind altogether. He knows he is pushing her and does not know why or where it has come from—usually he's one to avoid confrontation at all costs, to buckle under pressure, to give extra points to begging students and one to throw up his hands and admit defeat in all of his fights with Kathryn. But it is as if something has woken inside him, something tough and assertive, and he is _enjoying _it.

"So?" he says.

"So…"

"When was the last time you were in Storybrooke?"

Emma fiddles with her mug. "Last year sometime," she says quietly. "I was looking for someone. Maybe you saw me around."

He closes his eyes. It's almost there, like a word on the tip of his tongue, but the memory or image or idea or whatever slips through his head like a whisper and is gone.

"Could be," he says. "Maybe. Did you find him?"

She cocks her head at him and he sees a ghost of himself in her and warmth blossoms in his chest. "I think I'm getting closer and closer."

"Good."

Emma glances at her watch, and then back up at him. She smiles at him, and if he isn't mistaken, she looks almost_fond_. He is about to ask her more questions, dig deeper, but she is sliding out of the booth and rising, and his heart thumps painfully against his ribcage.

"Leaving already?" he asks.

"My mom is waiting," she explains. "I'm not here for long. Just passing through."

He stands too, and glances out through the glass door at Granny's. A yellow bug he assumes is hers is parked outside, and there is someone else in the car, but he cannot see him or her clearly.

"Well," he says, wondering if there's anything he can say that might make her stay longer. The assertive, powerful feeling is fading fast, and he is scrambling for words again and curses himself inside his head. He wishes he were strong, wishes he were braver, wishes he had the courage to just ask her to stay and talk, to explain what has just happened and who she is and maybe even who _he _is since he gets the feeling that she knows him better than he knows himself.

"Well," she echoes. "It was nice to drink hot chocolate with you, David. Sorry for the intrusion."

"Not at all," he says. "It was my pleasure."

"The pleasure was mine." She smiles, turns and walks away, weaving her way between tables and pushing the door open with the faint tinkling of the bell.

It is not until she has already lowered herself into the bug that he realizes that he never told her his name.

* * *

David wants to go after her. He wants it more than just about anything he thinks he's ever wanted, but he stays put, like his feet are nailed to the floor, and watches the bug pull away from the curb. It is not until it has driven out of his sight that he is able to move again, and he hauls out of the diner, bouncing off of Leroy, who has just come in for a coffee, skirting around Mother Superior and two nuns whose names he doesn't know, and then nearly running over Ruby, who is wiping the booth closest to the door. He says sorry at least seven times, (once to Leroy, four times to the Sisters, and twice to Ruby), and then he is exploding out the door onto the sidewalk.

The bug is nowhere in sight.

His heart is beating hard in his chest, and Emma's voice is still echoing around in his skull, and he lifts his hands to his head in frustration, clasping his fingers around the back of his neck. He wants to punch something.

"You ok there, David?"

Archie, the town psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, and counselor all in one, has pulled his large Dalmatian to a halt just outside the diner, on the other side of the white picket fence. David shakes his head, and then nods.

"Yeah, Archie, I'm fine."

"You sure? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yeah, well, maybe I have." David lets his arms fall limply to his sides. "Archie, you ever meet someone and swear you've met them before, but you just can't remember where?"

Archie glances down at the sidewalk and then back up at David. "I think that's fairly common, David," he says. "I wouldn't start believing in ghosts just because of a little déjà vu."

"No, it's not that," David says, and he is still frustrated but doesn't want to explode at Archie, who is probably the nicest man he's ever met.

"What is it, then?"

Also one of the nosiest. But then, that comes with the territory of holding the weight of an entire town's emotional and mental states on your shoulders.

"Sometimes I'm not sure I know who I am," David says, and he moves forward so that he can lean on the fence, forearms resting on the top slat, fingers clasped loosely together. "Do you ever get the feeling that you're…someone else? That you, the person you think is you, isn't really you at all? Like there's something _more_?"

Archie frowns gently. "Sounds almost like a question to ask Mother Superior. Are you having a religious awakening, David?"

David reaches over the fence and scratches Pongo behind the ears. "No, I don't think so," he says. "But maybe. Maybe I'll ask her about it."

"Look, if you want to come talk to me, I'd be more than happy to sit down with you and discuss this," Archie says. He glances at his watch. "I'd stay and chat now but I'm actually running late for another appointment."

"No, please," David says, gesturing down the street in the vague direction of Archie's office. "Go ahead. Maybe I'll stop by."

"Please do," Archie says, and holds out his hand for David to shake. "I'd love to talk to you about it."

"Yeah. Take care, Archie."

If there's one thing he is sure of, it's that he's not having a religious awakening. He thinks he believes in God. He believes in having faith and in some kind of higher power, and he doesn't see any reason why that couldn't be God. But this is not a religious feeling, and he doesn't think it's a psychological one either.

But then he doesn't know what else it could be.

"Déjà vu," he mutters, and straightens, rubbing the ache out of his forearms. "Just déjà vu."

* * *

David goes home that evening after coaching afternoon football and volunteering for a few hours at the animal shelter, pours himself a small glass of scotch, and sits down on the couch. He does not turn on the TV—he wants to think, to be alone, to be in the quiet and the dark.

Already that morning feels like it might have been a dream, so he closes his eyes and tries to hold the image of her, of Emma, in his mind, to remember her voice and the way she laughed and the way she looked at him over her mug of hot chocolate.

_A woman's scream. A baby crying. Something warm and wet on his face. _

He jerks awake (if he was asleep at all), and he is still sitting in his dark living room. The nearly empty glass of scotch is sitting on the coffee table in front of him. He rubs at his eyes—his heart is pounding loudly, like he's just run a marathon or been badly startled.

"Déjà vu," he mutters again. The scotch is just asking to be drunk, so he downs it in one and flops back onto the couch. "Emma. Emma." The name is thick and familiar on his tongue, and he closes his eyes again.

* * *

_A woman with long, dark hair stands with her back to him. He loves her. He loves her more than he loves life itself, more than he has ever loved anyone. She is holding a baby in her arms. _

_He wants to reach out and touch her, hold her, but his arms are frozen at his sides and he cannot move, cannot speak. _

_The woman turns. It is Mayor Mills, and she is smiling at him through red, red lips, and her eyes are cold and dead. She laughs, and the window shatters behind her, blowing glass and dust and smoke into the room—there is fire everywhere, burning the drapes, the carpet, the walls. He is burning, burning, he cannot breathe…_

* * *

David is thrown from the dream like he has been doused in cold water. The early morning sun is filtering through the blinds, and he has a horrible crick in his neck. His clothes smell like sleep and sweat, and he brushes a shaking hand across his forehead.

The dream is already fading faster than he can hold onto it, but he remembers fire and a baby, and something about the Mayor…

A cold shower wakes him up quickly and eases the tension in his neck and back. He puts on a collared shirt and tie and goes to church, where he sits in the pew with a handful of others and listens to the sermon without really hearing it.

His mind is far, far away.

* * *

Review!


	7. Part Six

Sorry this one is a little shorter - I'm in the first semester of my Masters program, and we're just starting finals week. Needless to say, I'm going a little crazy right now. But thank you for all of your support - enjoy this short installment!

* * *

**PART SIX: 27 Years**

A year passes.

The air in Storybrooke is electric, static, like something is about to happen.

David works on his truck and teaches history and coaches his football team and volunteers at the animal shelter and goes out for pints with Leroy and chats over his fence with Archie and passes the polite time of day with Mayor Mills when she passes by his house with her dog when he's out mowing the lawn.

He dreams every night.

He dreams of wild, dark forests and clear blue lakes. He dreams of chasing a blonde woman with big, sad blue eyes who is always, always a few steps ahead, like Cinderella with her glass shoes from the old fairy tales. He dreams of fire and smoke and thick, thick air that catches in his throat and burns his chest. He dreams of holding a beautiful woman with long, dark hair in his arms, but he never sees her face and every time he tries he wakes immediately and abruptly and the dream wisps away from him.

He thinks he might go insane.

And so he talks to Archie, talks to Leroy, chats with Ruby, even considers going in to talk to Doctor Whale. Is it an illness to dream strange things every night that you never quite remember, that you can't make sense of, that repeat themselves over and over?

In the end, he does not want to be poked and prodded, and something deep inside him does not want to give the dreams away, even if Doctor Whale or Archie could give him medications to drive them out of his head.

So David works on his truck and teaches school and takes walks late at night, and a year passes. He withdraws into himself, and it becomes more of an effort to reach out to his friends and neighbors. He finds himself content to sit at home on the couch and read a book or watch a game or a mindless television show. Several nights a week he goes on a drive through the forest and park somewhere and just sits and thinks. Sometimes, in that place between waking and sleep, out there in the cab of his truck in the middle of the trees, impressions of his dreams come floating back to him. A voice, a feeling, a word or an image of the bluest sky he has ever seen spreading high above him…but they never last.

David lives in a dream, and he does not know how to wake and find reality again.

He feels as if it has been stolen from him, that the life he is living is not real life at all.

In his dreams, he is more alive than he is when he is awake.

* * *

Time is a funny thing. Sometimes he notices it passing, and sometimes it is like his world is standing still. He has been here as long as he can remember, wherever here is (for sometimes his surroundings aren't real either, and he wonders if maybe he's actually in a coma somewhere just living in his own head, and that's why time and the town and the people and he himself are less than real).

One morning, David looks at himself in the mirror while he is shaving and has the strangest idea that he hasn't aged a day in 27 years.

And then the moment is gone and he wipes away the shaving cream and heads down the stairs to work, whistling.

He passes Mayor Mills on the street, she in her sleek black compact, he in his old beat-up pickup, and wonders at the fact that they've been driving the same cars for…oh, as long as he can remember.

But then he smiles and lifts a hand at her in the window (she doesn't seem to notice, or if she does she doesn't respond), and thinks about how they just don't make cars like they used to.

David stands in front of his classroom and passes out papers, and as the students work silently on an assignment he stares at them and has the strangest feeling that he has been grading their work for years and years, and nothing has changed and nothing will ever change.

But then they pass in their assignments and he stacks them sloppily on his desk and starts a lecture about the American Revolution, and time jostles back into (or out of) place around him.

* * *

And so a year passes.

And since David is the only one (as far as he knows) to have these little fits of awareness or insanity (he is not sure which), he keeps it to himself.

* * *

Sometimes he catches Mayor Mills watching him. He does not interact with her often, but when they pass on the street or he sits in on a town council or approaches her with a proposal for the school, her large brown eyes see right through him like no one else's ever have.

He considers talking to her about whatever is happening to him, but something inside him recoils from the thought, and so he just smiles placidly and says, "Morning, Madame Mayor," and pretends that he cannot see her staring holes in his skull as he passes her.

He does not trust her.

Not when he cannot even trust himself.

* * *

And then one day he wakes, and the wind has changed.

It blows from the east, and it is cool and brisk and clean, and he stands on his front porch and turns his face into the wind and breathes it in.

A great swelling in his chest brings tears to his eyes, but he blinks them away, confused and embarrassed even though no one is around to see.

"Emma," he whispers, and though the young woman has come to mind often in the past 12 months, he has never said her name out loud.

He is worried that she has been part of this dream, this hallucination, this insanity that has gripped him, but right now, standing on his porch in the wind, she is the only thing that seems real. He can see her face clearly, can hear her voice in his head, and though he has never been the impulsive type, he knows there is only one thing he can do.

And so he goes back inside, puts on his shoes, calls in a sub to school, and heads out to his truck with keys in hand.

He feels powerful, like he did the last time he saw her (yesterday or that morning or a year ago, he does not know), powerful and competent and strong and decisive, and though it frightens him, this confidence, he lets it propel him down his drive and ease him into the cab of his truck.

He is going to find her.

He is going to find Emma.

* * *

Review!


	8. Part Seven

Sorry it's been a while - the holidays and everything. We're near the end of this (obviously - 28 years is now!); I'm thinking one or two more chapters. Thanks for all of your reviews and attention!

* * *

**PART SEVEN: 28 Years**

The yellow bug is parked outside the Mayor's house. It is half hidden in the shade of the hedge, so David almost misses it when he glances in the rearview mirror (luck? chance? fate?). He hits the brakes and pulls a u-turn in the middle of the street, waving apologetically at an irate Mr. Gold who had just stepped off the curb. His tires spin on the gravel, and his heart has leapt into his chest.

How could she be here? Now, today, on the very day he has decided to leave town without an extra shirt, a toothbrush, food for the road, nothing, to find her? He has set off on a wild goose chase, but the goose has come to him (as strange as that sounds in his own head, he cannot help but laugh out loud and pound the steering wheel with one palm).

David throws his truck into neutral, yanks on the parking brake, and nearly leaves his keys turned in the ignition in his haste. He is halfway up the walk towards the big white mansion when he slows, realizing that he cannot simply barge into the Mayor's house and demand to see her out-of-town visitor simply because he feels he must.

So though it nearly kills him he backs down the walk again and returns to his truck, where he begins to pace up and down the length of the bed, eyes flickering from the Mayor's front door to the houses across the street to the clear blue morning sky and back.

And as he waits and paces, his heart slowly begins to resume its usual rate. He takes a deep breath or two and loosens his fists, straightens his shirt, runs a hand through his thick, cropped brown hair, and settles down to wait.

* * *

Ten minutes later, David is done waiting. He does not feel rushed or frantic, but he is done sitting outside next to an empty yellow bug waiting for Emma to emerge from her conference with Mayor Mills. He is filled with a calm certainty that the best thing in the world for him to do at this point is to knock on that front door despite how rude or impatient it might seem.

So with that same resolve that propelled him into his truck that morning, he sets off up the walk. This time he is only a few steps from the front door when it opens.

A woman is standing in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her. She is beautiful, with short black hair that frames high, prominent cheekbones and soft, full lips. She is staring at him with huge gray eyes, lips slightly parted, and her shoulders are rigid and tense.

"Hi," he says. "I'm looking for the Mayor…or, more accurately, the young woman who I think…is probably in there with her. Unless this is your car?" he gestures behind him limply at the yellow bug, suddenly realizing that he might be an idiot. Emma's bug isn't the only yellow one in the world. "It is, isn't it? I'm sorry, I was looking for someone else."

He is tempted to stay and talk to her anyway, just because she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and she is still staring at him like she knows him even though he _knows _he would remember _her. _But his drive to find Emma is just _slightly _stronger than his desire to flirt with a gorgeous woman, and so he wavers for a moment on the path before turning to head back to his truck with his cheeks burning in slight embarrassment at his own irrationality.

But then the woman stops him with a single word.

"David."

He turns back to her, because he _knows _her voice. And it's stupid, and foolish, because how could he know her voice when he has never met her? But his heart has leapt in his chest, and there are…yes, there are _tingles _running up and down his spine. If he was embarrassed before, he certainly is now, now that he's acting like a teenage boy who can't keep a handle on his hormones.

"Yeah," he says, and he is trying to play it cool and hoping he is succeeding. "Have we met?"

"Yes," she says, and takes a step towards him, towards the few steps that lead down the sidewalk. "Yes, once. A few years ago, here in Storybrooke. I was with Emma…with the girl you're trying to find."

He narrows his eyes at her, trying to place her, and then it clicks.

"Yes," he says, and he cannot stop a grin from exploding onto his face. "On the sidewalk. I asked if you needed help…"

"And we turned you down," she finishes, and smiles back at him with a soft, tentative smile that completely melts his heart.

"And did he…did the man you were looking for, did he come around?" he asks. He remembers that night on the bridge now too, with Emma, when she had told him that her sister (this woman in front of him, then) had found a man she'd been looking for but found him changed, different, and how it had broken her heart.

He wants her to say no, that he never changed, that she gave up on him and her heart is free and unbroken (the possibility that the man might have been a brother or father or friend instead of a lover never crosses his mind) so that he can ask her to go to dinner with him.

But she just smiles again, and her eyes are suddenly glistening with tears though she does not seem particularly sad. "He will," she says. "He's very, very, _very _close."

"Oh," he says, and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "That's good. That's…I'm glad. Congratulations." _Congratulations? Really?_

She laughs. "Thank you."

He scuffs one boot slowly along the concrete. He does not know where to look, because he wants to look at her but knows he should not stare. "So. Is Emma…did Emma come with you? I'd love to see her if she's around."

"She's...busy. With the Mayor." The woman glances over her shoulder into the house, and shadows cross her face. "But you're welcome to wait for her. Their conversation shouldn't last too much longer."

"Uh, sure, I'll wait," David says, because he does still want to see Emma very badly, and he is also hoping that this woman will wait with him. As if she heard his wish, she steps gracefully down the front steps and settles down on the top one with her hands clasped around one knee perched on the bottom stair. She just looks at him, and he takes this as an invitation to join her on the steps.

Sitting this close to her almost makes him forget about Emma entirely. She smells sweet and flowery, like spring, like woods on a warm day or gardens at twilight. (He knows he is waxing poetic in his own head but he cannot help it. Something about her invites the poetic.)

"So," he says. "How do you and Emma know Mayor Mills?"

"Mind if I explain that when Emma's done speaking with her? We have a very…complicated past."

He grins at her, but she seems entirely serious and he doesn't mind a little mystery. "Sure. Sure, why not. So, you know my name, but I don't know yours. What can I call you?"

She sends him a quick sideways smile. "Mind if I wait on that one too? Oh, it'll all make sense soon, I _promise_. You just have to be patient for just a _little _longer."

"I'll wait as long as it takes," he says sincerely. For some reason this makes her eyes flood with tears, and she clasps her hands tightly in her lap and blinks them away fiercely. He feels instantly awful.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"Don't be sorry, Charming!" she cries, and then claps one head over her mouth in almost comic shock. Her eyes are huge and luminous over her hand, and he wants to laugh and cry and kiss her all at once.

"Charming?" he asks (the fourth option is to talk and keep her talking, which is better than laughing or crying but not as good as kissing). "Do I sense sarcasm, or did I just get a rather dashing nickname?"

They hear her boots clicking on the marble floor just before her voice floats out the open door. Emma's words echo loudly in the open marble entry, and she sounds _pissed._ "She won't tell me anything, Mom. And I can't make her talk, not without…"

David rises just as she emerges from the house. She stops short at the sight of him, and her mouth drops open.

"David," she says. "I…wasn't expecting to see _you _here."

"Emma," he says. "I saw your bug and thought I'd stop…"

"Hold on, you remember who I am?" She blinks at him, and her eyes are flickering between him and the woman next to him who has slowly risen to her feet too.

"Yes, of course I do," he says.

Her eyes fill inexplicably with tears, but she looks more confused than anything. "But…the curse…how was it…was it just because I'm here?" she looks at the other woman, who is shaking her head vigorously.

"No, no, Emma, he doesn't remember…not like that. Not like _that_."

"Like what?" He half laughs because he is more confused than Emma looks, and something that Emma said is just clicking in his brain. "Wait, Mom? You're her _mother_?"

"It's complicated," the dark-haired woman says. "So complicated. We'll try to explain, I promise, but it's not going to be easy…"

"Hey, I've got all day," David says, crossing his arms. "What am I not supposed to remember?"

"Me," Emma says. "But maybe the curse is so close to being broken that he's starting to…"

"Wait, hang on, curse? What's all this about a _curse_?"

He wants to listen to them, to hear their explanations, and he is more open than he thinks he should be with this talk of curses and mothers who look no older than their daughters and women who think he has memories he shouldn't. So he stands there in the front yard of Mayor Mill's house and waits, and the two women are staring at him and then at each other, and he knows that he is on the verge of something that is going to change his entire life forever.

"David," the woman who is not Emma (he really wishes he knew her name) says finally. She is watching him with a mixture of hope and hesitation, and he gives her his full attention because he has never seen anything more endearing. "David, do you…do you believe in magic?"

_No, _would have been his gut reaction twelve months ago, but after the last year of confusion and strange dreams he's open to anything. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Why?"

"Maybe we shouldn't do this here," Emma interrupts, and he shoots her a look that makes her eyebrows raise to her hairline. "Well, you've got the disappointed daddy look down," she says as she passes him on her way down the stairs. "That's a start."

"A start? A start to what?"

"Let's go someplace more private," Emma says over her shoulder. "And safe."

"Safe from what?"

He's already sick of hearing himself ask questions, but the woman next to him is starting to follow Emma down the sidewalk, and she is begging him with her big, gray eyes to come with them, to trust her, to suspend his disbelief. So he follows them both down the walk and out onto the street, hoping that if he asks enough questions, they might just start giving him answers.

"Regina isn't exactly happy with us right now," Emma says. She is tossing her keys up and down in her palm and glancing from her bug to David's truck. "It might be a little cramped in my car…"

"I can drive," David volunteers immediately. "Is there someplace in particular you want to go?"

He is getting a little short-tempered with their elusiveness, but he remembers his manners and opens the passenger door for them both (he is pleased when the dark-haired woman gets in first and scoots over towards the middle of the bench seat). He jogs around the cab, hops in the driver's seat, and glances over at them. "Where am I going?"

"The toll bridge," the woman in the middle says softly. "Let's go to the toll bridge."

"Toll bridge it is," he says, and throws the car in gear.

* * *

Review, please!


	9. Part Eight

This is the end! Thanks for sticking with it (if you're still around), and I apologize for the long wait for this last chapter. Some of you have asked that I continue this past the curse being broken, but I simply don't have the time or energy to keep it going, so you'll have to fill in the blanks yourself. Hopefully this final chapter answers all of the lingering questions from previous chapters - if not, chalk it up to author error and feel free to let me know in your reviews.

Best!

Emrose

* * *

**PART EIGHT: The End**

They are the only ones at the toll bridge. It is warm morning (it'll be a hot afternoon), and the water trickling merrily across the pebbled river looks cool and refreshing.

But the water is the last thing on David's mind. He is standing on the bridge with his back to the water, arms crossed across his chest, waiting for answers from two women who obviously have no idea how to explain whatever it is they need to explain. They keep looking at each other as if hoping the other will start talking first, and David is nearly dancing with anticipation and frustration—all he knows is that everything is about to change, and he wants it to change _now _before he goes completely mad.

"So," he finally says. "Can I at least get a name now?" Emma and the other woman exchange yet another look, and he sighs. "It doesn't even have to be your real one if you don't trust me with…"

"It's Snow," the woman blurts suddenly. She looks fiercely at Emma, who just lifts her shoulders in a shrug as if to say _your funeral._ "My name is Snow."

"Snow?" David whispers, because whether it's her real name or not (and he suspects that it is), it is tickling something deep inside him and he thinks he might love this woman, though of course that can't be right. "Okay. Good."

"Does that…mean anything to you?" Snow asks tentatively. She is watching him with narrowed eyes as if waiting for him to break into song or explode or throw himself off the bridge. "Anything at all?"

"Mom, it doesn't work like that…"

"Okay, first of all, yes, it does, though I have no idea why, and second, Mom? Explain that one."

Snow's face breaks out into the biggest smile he has seen on her lips yet, and he cannot help but return it despite the absolute madness of the whole situation.

"David, does this place…does this place mean anything to you?" she asks. It's a very blatant dodge of his question, and he shakes his head.

"Uh uh. Nope. You're not getting out of it. How are you her mother? And yes, I like this place. I come out here all the time. I live here. It's nice. Peaceful. Quiet. I feel safe here, like nothing else really matters. How are you her mom?"

Snow turns to toss a strangely triumphant look at Emma, who is looking a strangled mixture of pleased, hopeful, and exasperated.

"Well, I gave birth to her," Snow says. David crosses his arms across his chest.

"That's usually how it works. You don't look a day older than she is."

"I age well?"

He wants to laugh, because she has an absolutely awful poker face. He settles for a slow grin. "Not buying it."

"Do you believe in magic?" This comes, unexpectedly, from Emma. Snow closes her eyes, and she presses her lips together subtly.

"Well done, Emma."

"Maybe it's time to stop dancing around," Emma says. David agrees with her 100%, but he isn't sure how to respond to her question.

"Magic? I don't know." He pauses. "If you'd asked me a few years ago, a few months ago, maybe a few weeks ago, I would have said no. Now?" he shakes his head slowly. His head feels full of cotton, all foggy and confused, but there's something niggling in the back of his brain that is trying desperately to cast a shaft of light through the haze and make everything clear and real. "Maybe. Probably."

"Good. Then will you do something for me?" Emma asks, stepping around Snow to stand just a foot or two from David, close enough that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted to. He realizes suddenly that for all of the times he thinks he can remember meeting her (how many times _has _he met her? He doesn't know, and a great ache of sadness swells inside him—he's starting to get emotional whiplash), he has never touched her.

"Anything," he responds automatically. She smiles softly.

"Listen to me. And don't interrupt. Everything will make sense, I promise. Can you do that for me?"

He brings a hand to his lips, zips them closed, and tosses the key over the bridge. Snow's hands are clasped in front of her, and her eyes are bright and hot—she seems on the verge of tears, and he is more than willing to listen to anything and everything if only it means all of this will be explained.

And so Emma starts to talk. And her words slip into his ears and down into his chest and heart and soul, and even though she's talking about magical curses and evil queens and fairy tales and princesses and saviors, he believes it all. With his whole heart he believes it, even though his head is screaming at him to call the sheriff and get these two loonies locked away in the bin.

Emma pauses once, when she is in the middle of explaining something about Snow White (and-the-seven-dwarfs Snow White?) and asks, "Are you okay? You look a little…overwhelmed."

"No, I'm good," he says, though he is anything but. "Can I ask a question?"

"Sure." Emma looks apprehensive, but she folds her arms across her chest in a mirror of his and waits.

"Snow White went through a magical wardrobe to this world."

"Yes."

"And she took her daughter with her."

"Yes."

"And she left her Prince Charming behind?"

"Yes."

He stops, because the pieces are clicking, and he kind of wants to laugh and kind of wants to cry, and kind of wants to sit down and curl into a ball, because his head is pounding and his chest is aching and he feels about to split in two.

"Your name is Snow."

Snow bites her lip. "Yes?"

"And Emma is your daughter."

"That's right."

"And you called me "Charming" back at the Mayor's house…who is actually Mrs. Evil Queen."

"I didn't mean to let that slip," Snow cries, looking charmingly distressed. "It was an accident!"

He lifts his hand to the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes, trying to massage his headache away and failing miserably.

"So, if I'm following you," he says slowly, "you're saying that you…" he points at Snow, "are Snow White of the Disney hall of fame, and you…" he points at Emma, "are the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, who is…" he points his finger at his own chest, finding himself unable to finish the sentence.

"You're following me," Emma says, looking almost as if she wishes he weren't. "Are you okay? Can I keep going?"

"One more question." She looks nervous now, but nods. "_How _are you her daughter? And yes, I know how it all works, but…but how are you two the same age?"

"Rumplestiltskin," Snow interjects. Until this point she has been mostly silent, alternately watching him with those big brown eyes and leaning over the edge of the bridge, staring down at the water with her hands clenched in front of her. "He gave me a spell to keep me the same age. Just for the duration of the curse. Or, until the curse _can _be broken. Which is today. Today I start aging again."

This makes all sorts of _no _sense at all, but he supposes it fits with the rest of what he's hearing. "That's like an elixir for…eternal life. That's pretty powerful stuff."

"Well, all magic comes with a price," she says, and a shadow crosses her face. "And the more powerful the magic, the more expensive the price."

"And what did you pay for your 28 years of youth?" He cannot believe those words have come out of his mouth in a 100% serious question, but he supposes he should just go with it.

"I had to give you up," she whispers, and now tears are prickling in the corners of her eyes, and it is as if someone has stabbed him in the chest. He wants nothing more than to take the few steps to her side and gather her up in his arms, but he is frozen to the wooden bridge beneath his feet, completely at a loss, and his head is pounding feverishly.

"How do we break the curse?" he asks. Emma blinks at him. She has gripped Snow's hand gently in hers, and they exchange another look, this one full of almost comical shock. "What," he grins. "Didn't think I'd believe you?"

"Well, I didn't expect it to be so easy to convince a grown man that magic is real, he's married to Snow White, and has a 28 year old daughter thanks to a curse cast by an evil queen masquerading as the mayor of Storybrooke, Maine," Emma says.

David laughs out loud. "Actually, that last part is easiest to believe," he teases. "Never been too fond of Regina. And honestly, if you could be inside my head right now, you'd believe anything that could explain everything that's happened in the last few years too. This is just about the only thing that even begins to make sense. _You _make sense."

Emma smiles, and now she's got tears in her eyes too, and he feels that he is standing on the edge of a precipice, about to tumble off the edge of his world.

"True love's kiss," she whispers. He looks automatically at Snow, and Emma half laughs, half sobs. "No, it's got to be me," she says. "I'm the Savior. But don't worry, I'll give the two of you plenty of alone time after this is all over."

"Looking forward to it," he says, and winks at Snow, who laughs through the tears now making their way liberally down her cheeks.

"Okay. Are you ready?"

"What, here?" He glances around at the trees and the bridge and the water trickling underneath them. "It's that easy, huh?"

"Well, this is where you two met," Emma says, nodding her head at Snow, who is now standing slightly behind her as Emma moves even closer to David. "We figured maybe this would be a good place for the two of you to meet for the first time again."

"Poetic. I like it."

"Thought so." Emma's lips quirk into a twisted little smile, and she looks even more nervous than he feels. "So. Ready?"

"Always."

And so she leans up, very carefully, and as her lips press warm and soft against his cheek, he closes his eyes and feels the world shake underneath his feet. There is a great rush of wind, and a thundering white noise pounding in his ears, and he feels the ground spinning, and then images and sounds and smells and feelings are pouring into his head. He cannot see, cannot hear, cannot feel anything but Emma's lips still warm against his cheek, and he wants to lift his hands to his head but cannot move, and there is an enormous pressure in his chest, a great weight that is going to crush him down, down, down…

And then it all melts away as if it has never been, and he is standing there on the toll bridge with a beautiful young woman standing anxiously in front of him, and the sun is shining above and the water is still burbling merrily beneath his feet.

He remembers everything. All the pain, all the anguish, all the heartbreak, the horror of sending his sweetheart and child through a magical wardrobe to another land, and he remembers kissing them and holding them and loving them, and he is whole.

He cannot speak, does not trust himself to speak, and so he simply reaches out and pulls his daughter, his wonderful, beautiful, incredible daughter, into his arms for the first time.

"You did it," he whispers around the lump in his throat. "You did it. Oh, Emma. _Emma._"

Her arms are so tight around his chest that he cannot breathe, and she is breathing hiccupping little sobs into his neck, but he doesn't care because this is his daughter, this is Emma, and he is a father, and he remembers everything so clearly and so painfully and so vividly that he cannot believe that he could have ever forgotten her.

And as soon as this thought crosses his mind, he opens his eyes and sees her. He does not want to let Emma go, but almost as if she has read his mind or felt his arms tense around her, she lets him go and steps back, out of the way, her eyes still bright and sparkling with tears.

"Hello, Charming."

She still fits in his arms like she was never meant to be anywhere else, and her hands are warm and familiar and _right _on his cheeks, and her kiss is worlds better than he could have possibly remembered. He will never, he decides right then and there, stop kissing her. His heart is nearly bursting out of his chest, and he gathers her tighter into his arms and loses himself in the feel of her, the smell of her, the reality of her, and it is only when she begins to laugh against his mouth that he pulls away just far enough to look her in the eyes.

"What?" he asks. "That bad?"

She shakes her head. "Emma."

"Hey, I don't mind," Emma says, but her voice is oddly distant, and he turns to see her standing several feet away with her back to them, staring determinedly at the water. "Don't let me interrupt."

He throws back his head and laughs, and he has never, ever been happier than he is right now. He presses another quick, soft kiss to Snow's lips that promises many, many more to come, and then together they join Emma at the railing. He holds Snow tightly to his side with one arm around her waist, and places his other hand at the small of Emma's back.

"You found me," he says. "You both found me."

Snow laughs, and Emma grins up at him and rolls her eyes. "She said you'd say that. That's pretty cheesy, Dad."

_Dad. _The word warms him to the very center of his chest. "Hey. I'm your father," he says. "Cheese comes with the package." And, because he can't help himself, he says it again. "I'm your father."

Snow smiles, and Emma tucks her head into his shoulder. David brushes his lips against Snow's upturned face and pulls Emma in tighter against him, and everything in his world finally, _finally_, makes sense.

_fin_

* * *

Cheers! I'd love to hear from you!


End file.
